Chapter 16 #2
The dinner was as grand and varied as Lingley had warned her of, though Chef Martin did constrain himself to four courses, but there were several dishes and removes offered in each one.
Each dish was small and exquisitely presented, more of a sampling than a filling amount of each was available to tempt the palate.
It was not completely different to the way Mrs. Bennet planned her meals at Longbourne but certainly elevated over the everyday.
Her mother consistently produced an exorbitant amount of left-over food from her parties, after all.
Luckily, there was always a tenant or three who appreciated the remains.
Mary followed the teachings of la Duchesse and kept the conversation general and entertaining.
Full of stories of school-boy hijinks and their wedding trip travels.
Any time that Mrs. Wilson appeared ready to throw a verbal arrow, angry that they were speaking as a table rather than solely to her partners, Mary relied on her well-developed skills of diversion, honed to razor sharpness through years of the fires of Mrs. Bennet’s nerves, to keep control of the discussion.
The looks of admiration and approval which Lingley shot her over the top of his wineglass strengthened and uplifted her spirits, giving her the courage to rise, after the trifle and biscuits had been consumed, and invite the ladies to join her in the music room for tea while the gentlemen enjoyed some fine French cognac.
The ladies glided from the room and settled into comfortable sofas. The tea cart had been brought in just as they settled, and Mary poured the water over the leaves and left them to steep while she grabbed the bull by the horns.
“So, how did you meet your husbands?” she asked, knowing that she was opening Pandora’s box.
“Lord Linford was a neighbor of ours, and we had been sweethearts for several years before I came out officially in London this year. My comeout had been delayed due to our grandmother’s and then our father’s deaths.
We married as soon as I had been presented to Her Majesty.
Franklin, excuse me, Lord Linford felt that we had waited entirely long enough. ”
“I imagine so,” Mary chuckled, turning to face Mrs. Wilson as she began to pour the tea.
“Lord Linford introduced me to all of his friends, and I was very close to an attachment with several highly placed gentlemen, in fact, the one I preferred most paid me a great deal of attention but in the end, he informed me that he was not quite ready for marriage. You can imagine my surprise to discover that dear John had then immediately married you! I am certain that there is some duplicitousness at work, and I will not be silent!” Her sister reached for her, but she shook her off.
“No, Angelica! She must have used her arts and allurements to turn his head! He was mine, and she has stolen him from me! You snake!” Her words then devolved into profanities of such ingenuity that Mary did not understand even half of them.
Mary had grown used to her new position as the darling of Paris; otherwise, the venomous words would not have struck her so forcefully.
She froze, her mouth suddenly dry. She could not even blink and had not a single reply come to mind.
Thoughtlessly, she lifted the cup of tea in an attempt to remedy her parched throat.
As soon as the liquid hit her tongue, she knew she had made a severe faux pas, and the shocked gasps of the ladies only confirmed it.
She never drank such sweet tea, meaning that it was not prepared for her, meaning that she had not served her guests before she had drunk herself!
She was horrified! Mortified! Humiliated!
She had shamed her husband in front of his good friends.
Her mind spiraled into a hurricane of self-loathing, and she set aside the cup with a soft clink, rose to her feet, and murmuring she knew not what, swept from the room.
Having heard raised voices, her husband’s most trusted footman, Michel, was standing outside the room when she exited.
With the last vestiges of her self-control, she made the quick sign which she had seen her husband do when ridding them of the Wickhams at their wedding breakfast and took the stairs with as much dignity as she could manage.
When Lingley and the gentlemen joined the ladies, they found the music room empty and were met by Durand and Michel holding the gentlemen’s hats and coats.
Reading the outrage on Michel’s face with a glance, Lingley made his excuses and bid them safe travels, promising to meet them at Whites when they returned to London for the season.
His friends were surprised, but suspecting that something had happened between the ladies, were understanding when they went to meet their wives who awaited them in the carriage.
Lingley took the stairs two at a time and knocked at Mary’s door.
There was no response, so he entered his own rooms and quickly stripped out of his dinner-wear and into a pair of soft sleeping pants and a banyan and entered her suite through the connecting door.
The candles had all been snuffed, but he knew the room by heart and made his way to the bed.
The bed curtains had been closed, and he nearly retreated to his rooms, assuming that she did not wish to see him, when he heard the softest of sniffling through the heavy brocade.
That decided him; he threw off his banyan and slid through the curtain and beneath the covers.
Mary was curled into a miserable ball of despair, her thin shoulders shaking with the effort to control her sobs.
He pulled her, unresisting, into the safe harbor of his arms and growled, “Which one do I dispatch?”
Mary snorted through her tears. “They may live; it was me, all me. I have shamed your family irreparably. You shall never live it down.”
“May,” he crooned, “surely it was not so bad as that. Tell me what happened. Are you ill? Hurt? Whatever it is, we can repair it.”
“I cannot speak of it tonight!” she blubbered. “Please, will you just hold me and let me pretend that I have not ruined everything?”
“Of course, dearest.” He pulled her closer and tucked her head beneath his chin. “I shall keep the world at bay until you are ready to face it once more.”
Mary lay awake, listening to the deep breaths beneath her ear as her husband slept.
She berated herself soundly for walking out of the room.
Perhaps she might have apologized before then, but she was certain that she had offended them beyond bearing by leaving so suddenly.
And to have them thrown from the house! Michel would have been polite, certainly, but the offense!
To be shown to their carriage before their husbands joined them!
What on earth had she been thinking! She did not sleep until early morning, and when Lingley woke, he left her to slumber as long as she wished and went to dress.
He was breaking his fast when the butler presented him with a note.
It was from Baron Linford, begging his condescension in allowing himself and his wife to visit in a quarter of an hour to beg the pardon of his lady wife.
He wrote that they would stop and if they were refused entrance, that they would understand that his wife had been mortally offended, and they would accept the break between them with understanding and regret.
Lingley shook his head in confusion; what on earth, he wondered, had happened last evening?
Mary had still not risen by the time his friends had arrived but knowing that she felt that she was entirely at fault, he was comfortable allowing them to enter and hopefully shed some light on things.
A mortified baron and extremely penitent baroness were shown into a small, informal sitting room where he invited them to sit.
“I am certain that your wife told you of the offensive and unacceptable manner in which she was attacked yestereve,” the Baron began, glaring at his wife.
“I am certain that she was kinder in her description than was perhaps deserved,” Lingley replied evasively. “Perhaps you could give me your view of things, my lady?”
The Baroness looked down at her hands as she began.
“You know how spoilt Araminta is. My mother has given in to her every whim, and only my father had any hope of controlling her. When he died before her comeout, I knew that it would be horrible, but I had no idea it… When Franklin refused her flirtations, followed in quick succession by Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam, it was like she lost her mind. She had always wished to marry first, but when my mother was forced by Franklin’s mamma to plan the wedding or step aside, she decided that she would marry best instead.
Your title, though a courtesy one, was greater, and the whispers of your wealth solidified her choice.
I know that you never had any interest in her; we all did, but she would listen to no naysayers, and my mother fed her delusions of grandeur.
When you staged that scene, where you declared that you had no intention of marrying that season…
you wrecked all her plans, and she latched herself upon the first wealthy gentleman to show her attention. ”
“Poor Wilson,” the Baron sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “He really does hold her in affection.”